Metatron
Metatron ("Meta") is the secondary archangel (Archon) of the player Jehoel (Brown) for Heaven. While he has very low HP for a hero, his ability, Holy Shockwave, is a powerful stun that can be used to both save Heaven's units and kill Hell's heroes. Abilities Holy Shockwave Holy Shockwave is a powerful ability costing 50 energy that forces other units back away from Metatron and stuns them very briefly. The knockback effect means that units attempting to get a surround on Metatron or his accompanying units can be forced back for a safe escape, while the stun effect makes Metatron a potent ingredient in hero-killing. Spell Damage Metatron deals 500 spell damage, like Uriel and Duma . This means his attacks ignore armor entirely, so Metatron's attack has no damage reduction against the Devil's 50 armor - or against Hell's base defenses, when stunned by Zadkiel . It also allows Metatron to deal damage under Dark Swarm (considering his range is actually 3, which is farther than melee range). Strategy By virtue of his stun, Metatron is one of the most useful characters on Heaven, and can serve a variety of roles. Metatron as a Solo Defender Metatron as a "Solo" defender is something of an incorrect description. Unlike, say, Jehoel, Metatron should never be running around completely alone. Because Metatron has such low HP for a hero and his abilities and attack are so short range, Hell players can easily snipe a Metatron wandering about alone, especially the Devil or Astaroth with their speed, higher HP, and high damage. In fact, because Metatron's ability is so powerful, Hell players may go out of their way to snipe Metatron. Instead, Metatron should always be used in conjunction with other units, with significant anti-air if the Devil remains alive. When with a large number of defending units, Metatron stands as a significant threat to Hell pushes. Fallen can be knocked out of melee range and have their HP reduced by 2/3rds if they are swarming around Metatron's support units. Dark Swarm pushes can be held back while the Messiah's units escape, and harpies chasing down heroes and units can be knocked away. Immortals can have their hardened shields, their major asset, reduced greatly before they can attack, or tanks that are protected by a thin line of blocking lesser demons can find themselves suddenly exposed to an advancing army. Enemy heroes in all corners risk death if they find themselves in range of a group of units that will mow them down during Metatron's stuns. It is important that Metatron's Holy Shockwave stuns are spaced by a small amount of time. Using both stuns at the same time will immediately deal 600 damage, but the real damage dealt should come from the surrounding units. Spacing these stuns gives these other units an extra second or two of damage dealt to enemy units, increasing the chances that Hell's elites or heroes might die. Jehoel-Metatron Train/Flanking Metatron works very well in tandem with primary hero Jehoel to kill off Hell heroes in the Jehoel-Metatron train, and the mechanics of this train are covered more extensively in the article for the player Jehoel. Metatron plays two key roles in the Jehoel-Metatron train: stunning and safety. When the train is used for hero killing, Metatron will often stun the enemy hero with Holy Shockwave just before the enemy hero attempts to escape. This extra second is often enough time to deal a significant amount of damage between extra hits from Metatron, Jehoel, the diamondbacks, and sometimes zealots, and so the stun enables the Jehoel player's infamous hero killing abilities. However, there is always a question of whether to use both Holy Shockwaves in the course of hero killing. Using both Holy Shockwaves greatly increases the chance of killing the enemy hero; however, it also puts the train at risk of being trapped by lesser demons or Fallen. If the train is fighting alongside other Heaven heroes, or has its main flank watched by other Heaven heroes, then the use of both stuns is significantly less risky. Note, however, that a fast Astaroth player might manage to trap Metatron with Fungal Growth, or, if Abbadon is the hero the train has just killed, send Fallen quickly enough to surround Metatron and several diamondbacks. As a general principle, if the train's flanks are not being watched or protected, Metatron should keep at least one stun reserved just in case. The ideas covered here using Metatron both for stunning and for protection apply to any other flanking group of units as well, granting the same extra second of damage against enemy heroes and providing the same anti-trapping protection. Notes Between his low HP and the horribly slow recovery rate of energy, Metatron should be constantly healed throughout the game. Metatron's knockback is not particularly pronounced against most hero units; however, on occasion positioning Metatron to knock the Devil into a mass of the Messiah's units (read: massive anti-air) with the stun can be a very effective way to eliminate a slippery Devil. An interesting note from production is that Jehoel and Metatron are literally designed to work together as a team: the reason both Jehoel's and Metatron's abilities are available without having to switch characters is because Jehoel's command card includes a modification to include Metatron's Holy Shockwave when both are selected. This change does not occur for any other characters in the game (i.e., if you selected both Seraphiel and Nathaniel, you couldn't switch Nate into flight mode from Seraphiel's command card). It's also amusing when players misspell Metatron as Megatron during the game.